<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Read My Lips by superglass</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29013099">Read My Lips</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/superglass/pseuds/superglass'>superglass</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Direction (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>90s music, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - Historical, Baker Harry, Birthday, Bottom Harry, Britpop, Childhood Friends, Christmas, Famous Louis Tomlinson, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, London, M/M, Mutual Pining, New Year's Fluff, Non-Famous Harry, Not bad tho, Old Friends, Pining, Shy Harry, Singer Louis Tomlinson, Smut, Top Louis, Y2K scare, harry owns a cafe, it's just there :), just a lot of fluff mostly, trigger warning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:53:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,298</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29013099</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/superglass/pseuds/superglass</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Not like butterflies— that’s too cliche, too obvious. When he sees him it’s like his heart itself has grown wings, battering against the birdcage of his ribs, begging to be released. A tightening in his gut, a flush to his cheeks whenever Louis so much as compliments him, tugging on the sleeve of his cardigan or pulling at the curl that always seems to fall over his eyebrow even when he pushes the hair out of his face. He feels his whole body thrum with electricity, soaking through his veins and making him go giddy: he could light up the whole city with it.</p><p>It’s his haircut, he thinks. He looks like a handsome-er Damon Albarn or Noel Gallagher, with his fringe that topples over his forehead and gets swept to the side by nimble fingers. Or— no, it’s his outfit, a warm Irish wool jumper, loose around his neck, where there’s a string of beads that looks like a souvenir from a holiday in the Caribbean. Elbows on the table, chin resting in the palm of his hand, his full attention. Everything on the table is up for Harry to take with grabby hands.</p><p> </p><p>or </p><p> </p><p>Old Uni friends Harry and Louis reconcile for the holidays after Louis’ early success as an indie singer. NYE 1999/Y2K scare au.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Read My Lips</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Red wine stains his lips. His fringe is soft, tousled, fingers flickering nervously every time they make eye contact. This is one of the great nights of Harry’s life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It started out as a dinner party between uni friends. Harry, always one to show off his new recipes and Pescatarian dishes, things he’s stolen from his mum’s cookbooks and food network shows on the television, invited everyone he still kept in touch with from school. But what started out as a holiday gathering between seven or eight became four and five, then three and four until all who’s left at the dining table is Harry and Louis, caught between an hours-long conversation about nothing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I missed you </span>
  </em>
  <span>were the words on the tip of his tongue all night, the thing Harry wanted to say the moment he saw him, in his warm jumper, shrugging off his puffer coat from the cold in the warmth of the front hall. Immediately, Harry had gone over to help him, to hang up his jacket in his front closet if it meant Louis would smile, be pleased, say</span>
  <em>
    <span> thank you</span>
  </em>
  <span> the way he does and </span>
  <em>
    <span>how are you </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ve missed you as well.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They haven’t talked in a bit. Well— in a while, actually. It’d be an understatement to say Louis’ been busy. For the past two years, he’s been climbing up an invisible ladder, tiptoeing on the line of fame. </span>
  <em>
    <span>As famous as an indie band can get, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’d said over the telephone the last time they spoke. It was May; Louis had just finished a slew of tour dates in America, scouring all of the major cities before coming back to do the same in Europe. Opening, he’d explained, as a solo act for a popular Scottish band that had been given critical acclaim in the past few years. They weren’t huge venues, or large crowds or football stadiums, but they were enough.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’ll be back by the holidays, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’d told Harry. </span>
  <em>
    <span>We can meet up, yeah? I want to know all about the café. You’ll make me those cream puffs that you used to.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he’s back, almost miraculously, sitting before Harry like nothing’s changed. It’s still the same feeling he gets in his tummy that he did three years ago, when they would study in the library together or stare at each other for a minute too long after one too many drinks. Not like butterflies— that’s too cliche, too obvious. When he sees him it’s like his heart itself has grown wings, battering against the birdcage of his ribs, begging to be released. A tightening in his gut, a flush to his cheeks whenever Louis so much as compliments him, tugging on the sleeve of his cardigan or pulling at the curl that always seems to fall over his eyebrow even when he pushes the hair out of his face. He feels his whole body thrum with electricity, soaking through his veins and making him go giddy: he could light up the whole city with it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s his haircut, he thinks. He looks like a handsome-er Damon Albarn or Noel Gallagher, with his fringe that topples over his forehead and gets swept to the side by nimble fingers. Or— no, it’s his outfit, a warm Irish wool jumper, loose around his neck, where there’s a string of beads that looks like a souvenir from a holiday in the Caribbean. Elbows on the table, chin resting in the palm of his hand, his full attention. Everything on the table is up for Harry to take with grabby hands.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t even realize he’s in the middle of speaking. “...and, um… you know, where in a spot where, like, there isn’t much food or anything— s’the shopping district, really, so. People will always come in with their bags and stuff, even if just to have tea or… a cupcake or something like that.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So business is doing well?” Louis asks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry nods into a sip of his wine. The food is long gone, as are the other dinner guests. But this wasn’t so much about the party as it was the two of them. Everyone else is a bystander, Harry thinks, irrelevant when they’re around one another. A habit of his father’s, drinking Port wine during and after dessert. It’s sweet and coats his tongue with a tangy, syrupy flavor, and though Louis says it tastes like Robitussin after a fateful night in Paris, throwing up in the bushes after one too many, he drinks along. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s great, Harry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His ears go red. “Thank you.” He clears his throat, finger tracing the rim of his glass to pick up dark red droplets of the wine on his fingertips. “How did you like touring?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p><span>Where Louis is quiet and attentive as Harry speaks, he’s animated on his own. All night, he’s thrown in stories, and not of name-dropping celebrity scale, but </span><em><span>funny</span></em><span> stories, things you might hear from a well-traveled uncle at a family dinner. Sleeping in cots outside motels in the American South because there were bed bugs in the rooms. Getting chased down the street by fans, one even going so far as to tackle the taxi cab in which they were driving away, like a scene out of </span><em><span>Hard Day’s Night. </span></em><span>Louis’ band (not-so-cleverly named </span><em><span>Home </span></em><span>one night in college when he was stumped looking for band names)</span> <span>forgetting their equipment in another city and having to drive back to retrieve it before the show that night.</span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He stores all of Louis’ stories into his own brain. His memories become Louis’; Louis’ become his. It’s something that stops short of romantic in Harry’s brain. Their proclivity for telling each other everything started in the early days of school, when they were teenagers who laid in bed for hours every morning, sleeping until noon because they could, because their classes were shite this term, because they were next to one another. In those dormitory beds, they learned everything about one another. Little, miniscule things, like Louis’ aversion to Harry sometimes wearing socks to bed, or Harry’s admittal to stealing Louis’ t-shirts and trousers and hats if he thought they were cool. Bigger, life altering moments, like Harry crying into the palms of his hands because he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>so confused, Louis, I don’t know what I am, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and eventually coming out, both of them to each other, or Louis making the decision to stick with songwriting and singing, to continue with the band that started out of a garage and see how far it goes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The night is spent in sweet reconciliation. When conversation drones out, driving out past the old memories from school like </span>
  <em>
    <span>remember when we did this, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>I hated when, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and coming to a comfortable silence in the middle of a desert. Harry shows him around his flat, to the living room where he’d replaced his ratty old couch with a new one from the department store, complete with collected throw pillows and a blanket he’s had since childhood. Into the kitchen, where he’d painted the cabinets a light green because he couldn’t help it, he loves the color, and decorated the windowsill with plants to match. Past his growing bookshelf: Walt Whitman and Charles Bukowski and </span>
  <em>
    <span>Norwegian Wood </span>
  </em>
  <span>and Mary Oliver. His bedroom, where every wall is covered in photographs and posters of his favorite bands, of movies and newspaper cutouts. Where the carpet is covered in CDs and mixtapes and old records, in this morning’s laundry and hangers from when he couldn’t decide what he was going to wear for Louis to impress him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s there when he sits on the edge of the bed, smiling down at his lap when he feels the dip in the mattress next to him, so much as the warmth by his side. “I’m in London for the next few months,” says Louis, a raspy low voice filling his senses. He breathes it in like it’s the sweet scent of a meadow or the first day of fall when the air is crisp and the sun is finally out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Would you maybe want to— erm, come over to mine? On Christmas Eve. I mean, me birthday. I’ll be at me mum’s the next day but… if you wanted—”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That sounds lovely,” Harry says, turning his head to smile. “I’ll make you a mini-cake.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Louis’ staring ahead at the poster for the Rolling Stones he has hung up across from his bed. Mick and Keith mirror them almost exactly, and he can see Louis smiling at it, lips pinching forward to try to hide it, his cheekbones and the crinkles at his eyes giving it away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You don’t hafta do that.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I will, though. Haven’t spent your birthday with you in so long.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Louis scratches the back of his head, eyes flicking towards him. “Yeah. S’been— what, two years?”</span>
  <span><br/>
<br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Harry shrugs. “You’ve been a busy bee.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He feels a gentle elbow in his side, almost not there, and glances over to catch Louis’ gaze: soft, warm, blanketing him in a dizziness that he’s certain isn’t from that third glass of Port before. His lips part, and he wants to say something, but Louis beats him to it. He always has.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ve missed you.” Means </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ve missed us, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and </span>
  <em>
    <span>I know you missed me, too. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Harry doesn’t even have to say it back for the feeling to be mutual, a single thread tying them together. He just smiles back, and his head falls to his shoulder.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe he should cry. Or maybe that’s too dramatic. It’s just— he wants so much from Louis, too much probably, for it to ruin their friendship. It’s selfish, but true. Like when he was young, and he wished for the summer to last all year round, or visited places like Spain and the South of France and wished he could steal the sunlight and keep it with him when it was rainy and dreary back home. His life is fine, he’s content, and it’s not as though he’s miserably waiting for something to come around, but. Life is better when he has this, when Louis’ shoulder is available for his chin and cheek and neck to hang from. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t stay overnight, to Harry’s dismay. But it’s alright, though, because he’ll see him in two days, and the address to Louis’ apartment is written in a new page in his address book, and he gets to bake a cake for his birthday.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he curls up for bed, he dreams of Louis being home like this always, and he thinks of what he used to feel back in school when they’d fall asleep together, and he thinks— quite selfishly, again, the words of something he read in a book long ago— </span>
  <em>
    <span>I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.</span>
  </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>*</span>
  </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Christmas Eve is a day in Harry’s mind that, for the past five years he’s known Louis, is more of a holiday than any other. Louis meets him in the morning, a slow day in his cafe, puttering around filling nonsensical obligations because it’s Christmas and it’s snowing outside and no one has come in yet, unless they were mums with their hands full of last-minute presents who needed a shot of espresso to keep them going through the day. And maybe a grandmother or two or three. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The cafe’s kitten, a little stray that Harry brought in and got neutered so that he could keep him safely in the store, sits comfortably on the windowsill, snoozing on a pillow of fake snow Harry decorated the display with. Louis, sprawled out on a leather couch, feet propped up on a coffee table, reading the latest issue of a Rolling Stones magazine. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What flavor would you like your cake?” Harry calls out from the counter, wiping down the display case of sweets and pastries.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I told you, you don’t have to make me one.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Shut up. What flavor?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Louis smile and sit up straight. “Chocolate’s fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>Harry nods, firmly, stepping back to examine his work. He goes back to clean up a fingerprint on the glass. Behind him, he feels Louis come up, wrapping his arms around his shoulders and pressing his face into his shoulder. He's only an inch or two shorter, and he fits perfectly there. Harry grips the wet towel in his hand and leans back into the touch.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“M’all gross,” he groans, but Louis doesn't seem to mind. His nose presses into Harry’s neck, bare from his curls being pulled in a bun.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Who cares.” And everything is acute, the feeling of his breath ghosting over his collarbones, the warmth of his arms wrapped around Harry’s torso. The feeling is amplified by a million, by ten million, because it’s Louis. Because Harry is in love with him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thanks for the cake. In advance.” It’s a whisper that sends a chill down his spine. He shudders, only slightly, eyes slipping shut.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re welcome,” he whispers back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The warmth leaves him at the same time the shop door opens with a jingle. A father and his small daughter come in, shaking the snow out of their hair. Harry’s eyes blink open, body going cold from the draft through the crack of the door, and he slips behind the counter to accommodate them. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He catches Louis’ eye at the register, ringing up the small family’s box of cupcakes. Louis pulls a funny face, crossing his eyes, and Harry grins back, biting his lip through the transaction. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The family leaves. There’s only two hours left before Harry closes shop. For an hour, he sweeps the floors, dancing around to the Christmas song playing on the radio. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Everyday will be like a holiday, when my baby, when my baby comes home… </span>
  </em>
  <span>The next hour, Louis dips out to go shopping quickly for his sisters. Harry meets him with two paper cups of tea in hand in the center of town, where the snow falls around, catching in Louis’ hair and making the tip of both of their noses go red and even though Harry’s lips are chapped and half of Louis’ face is hidden behind the scarf Harry let him borrow, he wants to kiss, probably more than anything else in the world.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not just kissing he wants. It’s touching, and listening, and being there at night and in the mornings and after Louis’ shows when he’s sweaty and glowing and high off of the adrenaline, being there when Louis gets an idea for a song and his face lights up like it used to when he would play around on the guitar with an open notebook spread out before him, pieces of napkins laying around with scrawled lyrics written on them or references to things like </span>
  <em>
    <span>end of With a Little Help From My Friends </span>
  </em>
  <span>or </span>
  <em>
    <span>that bit in The Graduate when… </span>
  </em>
  <span>He wants to be there to pick out Louis’ clothes, to tie his tie for him, not because he needs Harry’s assistance— he’s not some senile old man who can’t dress himself— but more for the idea that if he goes out today and someone recognizes him, there will be a part of Harry there. Harry wants to cook for him. He wants to fall asleep on the couch next to him. To adopt a cat and a dog and live in domestic bliss, for the rest of their lives, even as Louis travels the world and as Harry stays in London, opening and closing his cafe every day.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He makes the cake in the few hours he has before he’s supposed to go to Louis’ for dinner. They’re ordering in and watching television, and maybe he’ll play a bit of a new song he’s been trying to finish since the tour started. He could use Harry’s expertise from when he used to sing back in school, back when he took music theory classes and wrote poems in the margins of his notebooks after reading too many books by Ernest Hemingway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He decorates the cake with a pale red buttermilk icing and pipes little flowers around the edge and base. It’s a little too much effort for only the two of them to have to eat it, but when he puts it in a box leftover from the bakery and seals it with tape and a bow on top like it’s a present, he smiles to himself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He puts on his warmest jumper. Not something from the thrift store, something nice, thin enough that he needs a leather jacket on top. It’s still loose around his shoulders and neck, showing his collarbones where his curls don’t cover them and the junction at his neck. A loose pair of jeans and his only pair of boots that aren’t completely scuffed and ruined. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He gets buzzed into Louis’ flat at six sharp, feeling nervous and giddy. It’s just— their friendship, the times they used to talk </span>
  <em>
    <span>every single day</span>
  </em>
  <span> for years was lost or put on temporary hold whilst Louis went on tour. But now, it’s like it’s being amplified, making up for lost time. Even last night, they’d spent hours on the phone, Louis saying he’ll pay Harry for the bill if it meant he could finish this one last story. Harry fell asleep listening to Louis ramble, like he used to back in school, when they would slip into each other’s beds to whisper their thoughts about the day to one another.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I’m so gay, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Harry thinks, as he knocks on the door and waits, grinning up at the ceiling like a crazy man, for Louis to open.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He must’ve just gotten out of the shower. His hair is still wet, dripping past his ears and onto his shoulders. But he’s dressed in a thin white t-shirt, and he’s grinning back at Harry. If he weren’t balancing the cake in his hands and praying he won’t drop it while tripping over his clumsy feet, he’d crash into Louis and hug him tightly. Instead, he lets Louis wrap an awkwardly placed hand over his shoulder and grin into his neck.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Happy birthday!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You said that this morning.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know, but it’s still true.” He pulls back, presenting the cake to him. The bow had fallen off a bit on the Tube ride here and now it’s lopsided. He hopes it looks endearing. “Made you a cake.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Louis’ blasting a new record, ironically from one of his “competitors” in the scene of music he’s cascaded into the past four years. It’s something slower and sadder, acoustic, sounding alarmingly similar to the music he makes. They settle inside, curling up on the couch with two plates of Chinese takeout, sharing the same blanket, watching a program about true crime, Louis’ favorite genre. </span>
  <em>
    <span>On </span>
  </em>
  <span>your </span>
  <em>
    <span>birthday, we’ll watch romcoms. I’ll rent some Julia Roberts movies from the video store. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“How are you so good at this,” Louis says after the first bite of his cake. Harry blushes into his shoulder. He can’t help being cuddly at this time of night.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“S’alright,” he says back when he takes his own bite. He could’ve done better. He’s made better cakes for the people at the cafe.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Better than alright,” Louis insists, wrapping his free hand around Harry’s shoulder and pulling him in impossibly closer, tucking into his side and kissing his hair. “Brilliant, you are.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He falls asleep with his face tucked into Louis’ neck, snoring softly as Louis’ thumbs rubbed into his bicep comfortingly. And– if this is what life is like between them, Harry doesn’t think he ever wants it to end.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>*</span>
  </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>They each drive home, departing on Christmas day. Harry goes to his mum’s, a few hours train ride to Manchester and then a few more in a cab. It costs him a bloody fortune, but it’s worth it to see his mum and sister and stepdad, if even only for a few days on the weekend. Louis goes home to Yorkshire. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’ve made plans to spend New Years together. Louis is skeptical of the craze that keeps happening around them, people worried that the world will end the second the clock strikes 12. That computers and televisions will blow up in some crazed apocalyptic meltdown, and they’ll go back in time hundreds of years. The Evangelicals in the sidewalks of the city scream warnings at passers-by with picket signs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t believe it,” Louis says over the phone that night, after Harry calls him to ask how his Christmas went. “They’re always making up conspiracies like that. Life will go on the same way it always has. Well— maybe some things will be different.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s like that song,” Harry recalls, and tries to sing the lyrics as he remembers them, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Let's all meet up in the year 2000, won't it be strange when we're all fully grooown?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hears Louis’ laugh, light and airy, and closes his eyes, basks in the sound as he sinks into his pillow. “Used to love that one back in school.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I remember singing it when you graduated. Two years ahead of me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m always two years ahead of you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There’s a private, cheesy grin he shares with himself when Louis isn’t looking. A burst of self-consciousness pangs through his chest when he hears Louis sigh over the phone. “Sorry. Were you going to bed?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, darling,” Louis says, and it must be— must be the way his voice sounds raspier, throatier over the phone, but Harry’s lips part at that, and he soaks it in, keeps it stored in his brain for safekeeping— a rainy day. “You’re alright.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I keep— well. Feel clingy, is all. Haven’t stopped talking to you since Tuesday night.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Haven’t stopped thinking about you since Tuesday night. </span>
  </em>
  <span>About the way he looks, the way he smells, the way he felt yesterday when he came up behind him in a silent hug, or the way it felt last night with his hands threading through Harry’s curls.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“S’not just you. I’ve been hanging off your neck just the same.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The assurance makes Harry grin into his pillow. If he were a schoolgirl, this would be appropriate. He’s almost got the urge to giggle and point his toes inward.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” he says, almost breathlessly. His eyes squeeze shut embarrassedly at it— it’s something they’ve said a million times, in more ways than one, although it never quite comes out like this— quite and contemplative and unexpected, like a gasp, like a secret.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Louis doesn’t hesitate. “I love you too. Go to bed, now, Haz, s’late.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alright. G’night.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight, Harry.”</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Now here they are, in the midst of people Harry barely knows, all of whom are panicking about computer numbers and the world ending and their data being lost and things exploding before their very eyes as the New Year starts. To be quite frank, Harry doesn’t— well, he doesn’t give a fuck if the apocalypse starts, because if he gets what he wants by the end of the night, if he gets what he’s wanted since, what the fuck, almost six years ago when he met Louis, none of that matters.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What he </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants </span>
  </em>
  <span>is a kiss. A confirmation. A smile against his lips, asking, “Are we, like, a thing then? Are we together now?” while Auld Lang Syne plays in the background. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s a fingertips length and twenty minutes away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Harry is slightly tipsy. Not drunk, not like everyone else at this party. Just… pleasantly buzzed, half hanging off of Louis’ torso as they sway to a slow song by Shania Twain. Louis has a drink— a rum and coke— hanging from his hands, his other resting at the tender part of Harry’s hip, searing through his thin blouse as if it’s marking his skin his own. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry’s been contemplating it all night, all week. Basically his whole adult life. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ten minutes,” Louis whispers into his ear. Harry wants to whine, wants to tug at his shirt childishly and just start early, </span>
  <em>
    <span>let’s get this over with, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but he can’t. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At five minutes, in the craze of people around them— at least fifteen of whom have already stopped to ask Louis for an autograph, and Harry doesn’t know why Louis even likes houseparties, because he never used to— Harry tugs Louis aside, into a coat closet, flicking on the light to see properly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Louis’ eyes are bleary but blue, miraculously blue, insanely blue, and Harry’s breath almost hitches in his throat at the rawness of it, the bluntness of his gaze. Deep, icy blue like he scooped the whole ocean and the sky between his fingertips and held them up to his face, kept them there for safekeeping in case the whole world simmered away before him. Like he’s captured every tear he’s ever witnessed, each one he could find, and saved them for himself— and </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s five minutes early to it. He just can’t help it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And it’s untimely, and messy and unanticipated and </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect. </span>
  </em>
  <span>It’s a kiss Harry will keep with him, tucked in his coat pocket, or under his bed with old shoes and sentimental things. It softens, until the grip on Louis’ jaw is light to the touch and Louis’ hands on his hips have purpose, direction, pulling him closer. It smells like cigarettes in here, and leather jackets and old cologne. Louis tastes like coca-cola, his lips’ juvenile taste reminding Harry of a time in an earlier life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well— that was unexpected,” Louis says when they pull back, panting. Harry hums in agreement, smiling.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Couldn’t wait.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not even a few minutes.” It’s not a question, but an agreement. Like— </span>
  <em>
    <span>me neither, Harry. Been waiting too long. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Louis’ thumb comes up to trace Harry’s bottom lip, where their spit mixed in a thin sheen of saliva. “Always knew you’d be a good kisser.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry grins, so wide he can feel the strain of his lips, the dip of his own dimples. “You thought about it, huh.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“‘Course I bloody thought about it,” Louis laughs, assuming a matter-of-fact, almost affronted tone. “Thought about it every time I looked at your lips. Pretty lips.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry crashes back into him, kissing him over and over and over, pressing them back into the wall of the closet. Their hands roam, just touching, just memorizing after years have gone to waste not doing so. Only stopping when they have to, when someone knocks on the locked door, and when they physically can’t anymore. The yellow light makes them both look like something out of an old, sepia-toned film. Louis tugs on a curl that falls over Harry’s forehead, then down to the ones that kiss his shoulder. (It’s a length which would be coined for stoners and grunge rockers like Kurt Cobain and Thom Yorke, but he thinks makes him look quite— quite girlish, if he’s being honest. He likes being able to pull it back in a bun or let his mum and sister braid it when he’s home for the holidays. He likes even more when Louis pulls the hairband out, and combs through them until they fall over his face and shoulders like a mermaid.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Pretty,” Louis tells him, almost subconsciously. Harry wants to cry.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Outside, people are kissing, too, a silent way of telling them, </span>
  <em>
    <span>you’re not special, </span>
  </em>
  <span>even though they were exiled to a more private, secretive room in the back of the flat. Harry knows it’s not true, that him and Louis are probably more special than everyone at this party. Because of the process, because of the wait. It was all worth it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Outside, people have calmed down a bit. A girl hanging off the wall has a flip phone in hand, and the date on it reads 1/1/00. And nothing’s changed. The television plays a New Year’s Eve program, fireworks pumping into the air and television presenters grinning through the whole thing, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hallelujah, the world’s not dead! </span>
  </em>
  <span>People are kissing, drinking, thanking the lord, or calling their mums, telling them now they’ve got to return the stockpile of a twenty-five year supply of food and water they’d bought in preparation because </span>
  <em>
    <span>mum, everything’s fine, Happy New Year! </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And people are singing Auld Lang Syne, just like Harry wanted, just like in </span>
  <em>
    <span>When Harry Met Sally, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and he’s about to say that to Louis but— Louis beats him to it, hooking his chin over his shoulder and saying, in a horrible impression of Billy Crystal, “I love when you get cold when it’s seventy-one degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love when you get a little crinkle above your nose, when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry turns around in his arms, grinning at him. “I’m Sally in this situation?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Louis brings a hand up, ruffles Harry’s curls for him. “‘Course you are. And I’m Harry.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> “You’re the one who </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually</span>
  </em>
  <span> gets cold when it’s seventy degrees out.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Louis shrugs, and steals a kiss. A peck, really, too fast for Harry to notice it and kiss back. He blinks, a bit stunned that Louis did it in front of everyone. And he continues, in a startling display of how well he remembers the lines to a film Harry used to make him watch weekly one month back in uni. He was going through a phase, and the DVDXpress let him borrow the movie for longer than usual. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>came </span>
  </em>
  <span>here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your </span>
  <em>
    <span>life </span>
  </em>
  <span>with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry doesn’t know how to communicate to Louis that all he wants is for the rest of their lives to start right now.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s two weeks before Harry’s birthday when it happens.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he’s nervous, shaking, hands twitching at his sides as Louis climbs over him, mouth pressing flaming kisses into the skin of his neck and shoulders. It’d started out innocent, with Harry stealing kisses all night long, even while he was cooking and while Louis was practicing his guitar. As soon as they expelled themselves back to Harry’s room, the kisses became needier, hungrier, until they were half-naked and panting.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Lou,” Harry whispers against his mouth when his lips trail back up. He’s hard, but trembling, and he feels dumb that he even needs to say it. “Lou, I…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At his tone, Louis pulls back from his ministrations. On his neck and collarbones, fresh, teeth-marked bruises stand out against Harry’s milky pale skin. He rubs the pad of his thumb over them as he speaks. “Y’alright, baby?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry falters through a nod. “I— um, I haven’t done this in a while.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>A while </span>
  </em>
  <span>is an understatement. Harry can’t help but despise casual sex. He can’t deny that he partook in it, especially back in school when he was a horny teenager who just needed to get some, boy or girl; and he won’t deny that he’s slept with people in the past, usually men he’s met at the gay bars downtown and, one miraculous night in Paris with some of the best sex he’s ever had. It doesn’t change that afterwards, he feels terribly lonely, wallowing in romantic fantasies that never come true.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We don’t have to,” says Louis, sitting back on Harry’s hips. He trails a finger down Harry’s bare chest, then teasingly, around each of his nipples. Harry keeps himself from bucking his hips up, from arching his back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, I— I want to, s’just…” he squeezes his eyes shut. “I really like you, and I don’t want to fuck this up, ‘cause, like, I’ve been waiting for this for a while… and—”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He cuts himself off, letting out a punctuated sigh. Louis pinches a nipple playfully.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’ve been waitinggg,” he repeats teasingly, then flops down beside Harry, tugging on his hip so that they face each other. Harry blinks his eyes open to match his gaze. “What have you been waiting for?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A thick swallow. He can’t say— it’s too— it’s too much to say. “Waiting for… um… for you to touch me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Touch you where…?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry squeezes his eyes shut again bashfully. A rose blush paints his cheeks and chest, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s hot in here, innit? </span>
  </em>
  <span>“Where I’m— where I’m hard. Y’get me so hard, Lou.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He inhales, shakily, and admits it. “Back in school sometimes, you’d get to me so bad, talking about— about the sex you were having, or, like, the porno you watched or something, so— like, </span>
  <em>
    <span>casual, </span>
  </em>
  <span> and I’d get so hard I’d have to go to the bathroom to have a wank.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A pause, then, Louis groans, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Harry</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Fucking Christ.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“God, I— can you— can we—” He’s making grabby hands now, reaching out and tugging at Louis, at his hair and at the hip that juts out and for his arms to circle him again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yes, yeah,” Louis whispers back, saying it into his mouth, where their words tumble together until they’re the same.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s awkward, and clumsy, and Harry’s— </span>
  <em>
    <span>very, very </span>
  </em>
  <span>unused to it, like, a year of working at the cafe and coming home tired every night and not getting laid unused to it, to the point where every touch leaves him responsive, like a virgin who’s never been kissed before. He squirms around on the bed, not knowing whether or not to arch into Louis’ mouth or writhe away from it. Louis’ teeth— still crooked, always were since they were younger— nip playfully, every chance he can get, if it means Harry will let out a soft pant or a whine. Beneath his chin or at his nipple or lower, between his thighs where the skin is thin and sensitive and too close to where Harry needs some sort of pressure.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And for a long while, as they touch each other, as Harry pulls him up so that he can slide one hand over his torso, memorizing again, and the other pulling at Louis’ cock, working it, remembering how, Harry doesn’t think. He just feels, as cliche as that sounds in his brain. He’ll ponder later on his own bashfulness, his own responsiveness and the way he looks inexperienced while Louis plays him like a fucking violin, knowing all of the right places, the crook in his fingers while he stretches him and the twist of his wrist. He falls, hard and fast and deep, into a fantasy, a Louis-shaped daydream.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Look so pretty,” Louis’ saying, as he rolls a condom over himself, and Harry stares back at him with dazed, hooded eyes. It’s happening, he thinks, it’s really happening. “You’ve wanted this so long, haven’t you?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry nods wordlessly, spreading himself out beneath Louis, hands in his own hair, tugging slightly at his scalp when Louis dips two fingers back inside him </span>
  <em>
    <span>just to make sure you’re ready, yeah?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he finally presses in, he distracts Harry by kissing him, dipping his tongue into his mouth before whispering against his lips, “I love you. I love you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Harry whispers back: “I love you too. I love you too.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And it’s a promise, sealed by Harry throwing his head back in a low groan, by Louis speeding up his hips and biting hickeys into his skin. By Louis saying, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“God, you feel so good— y’so tight,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>or, at a slower pace, tracing the sharp line of Harry’s jaw and telling him, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Prettiest boy I’ve ever seen. Can’t believe you’re mine.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It gets sharper when Louis lifts up Harry’s hips and goes rougher, pulling groans and whines out of Harry’s mouth, sweet sounds that stay between them. And afterwards, the next time Harry comes back to life— in a suddenness that feels like becoming new again, like gaining something he’s never felt before— it’s when he flops on his stomach, Louis behind him with a washcloth, massaging the backs of his thighs with calloused hands. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Harry thinks. He says it again, and again and again and again, later as they fall asleep, breathing each other’s breaths.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>As Harry’s birthday present, Louis gives him a song he wrote for him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was written in the midst of his earlier phase, at the height of Britpop, bands like Oasis and Blur topping the charts rather than Britney Spears. He tells Harry, through a laugh, that he actually stole the chorus from one of those bands’ songs— that it wasn’t completely original, everything but the lyrics.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I don't know what it is that makes me feel alive</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I don't know how to wake the things that sleep inside</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I only wanna see the light that shines behind your eyes</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I hope that I can say the things I wish I’d said</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>To sing my soul to sleep and take me back to bed</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Who wants to be alone when we can feel alive instead</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Because we need each other</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We believe in one another</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And I know we're going to uncover</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What's sleepin' in our soul</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Because we need each other</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And— and Harry kisses him. And Louis kisses back. And it’s syrupy, and sweet, and theirs. When Louis moves into Harry’s flat two months later, it’s theirs, too. When Harry kisses him goodbye a year later for another small tour, with promises that they’ll call every night, no matter what time of day or night it is, that’s theirs, too. When Louis breaks out in the US market, his sales going through the roof, and comes back home to celebrate with wine and presents and a ring for Harry’s third finger, on his left hand, that’s theirs, wrapped up in them, in each other, a promise, a sentiment. A vow.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello, , I wrote this in literally one day. I was feeling very romantic and very much unproductive at doing anything other than focusing my time on this. I know it's just a load of shitty tooth-rotting fluff and pining, but it makes me feel warm inside. There's something so romantic about a fic with no angst.</p><p>Thought Louis'd be a perfect example of the 90s Britpop singers. He channels that energy so well. If only he was born, like, fifteen years earlier.</p><p>Hope you like it. I keep writing from Harry's perspective and making him super shy and stuff oops hahaha it's my favorite trope. I know it's not much.</p><p>Let me know what you think &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>